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Joe McLaren & Koroit Print E-mail
{mosiamge}It may not have been Big League footy, but Joe McLaren says the opportunity to join brothers Chris and Liam in Koroit’s premiership last year was just about his ultimate thrill in football.

“You never forget things like your first League game (at St Kilda) and when we won the Ansett Cup, too,” he said, “but playing alongside your brothers in a winning Grand Final side… it was very special that’s for sure. It was one of the key reasons why I came back, to play with them.”

McLaren, 31, is this year coach at Koroit, one of the powers again in Hampden League football. Brother Chris is the club’s long-time captain and between them they have Koroit well placed to again play-off, especially as they have already beaten current top team Terang twice in 2008.

“Terang is always hard to beat,” McLaren says. “They are a quality side so it was a good effort by us to beat them at our ground and theirs. They’re the games you want to play in. You really find out exactly where you stand”.

With less than a month to go before the play-offs, McLaren says the two proud teams are likely to meet again in the finals and like the first encounters, they will be strong.

Come September, Koroit may welcome back star teenager Dean Gavin, who played the first month and a half before being called up by the Geelong Falcons.

“We were lucky to have him in the first 5 or 6 games. Good luck to him. It’s a great opportunity to show what you can do at that level,” says McLaren.

McLaren had played all his formative years with Koroit before being drafted to St Kilda where he played 57 games in five years before a short stint with the Kangaroos on the way through to two seasons with South Fremantle in the WAFL.

Highlight of his time with the Saints was the opportunity to play in a night premiership, in 1996 under Stan Alves in front of almost 60,000 at Waverley and a top eight finish in the best and fairest in 1999 – he played all 22 games.

A free-running player, suited to the wide-open spaces of Waverley, then St Kilda’s home ground, McLaren says it was a thrill to play alongside some of the greats of the game like Robert Harvey, Nathan Burke and Stewart Loewe at St Kilda and Wayne Carey and Glen Archer at North Melbourne.

“Whether I got the best out of myself, I don’t really know,” he says.

“I gave it a good, hard go though, a real crack.”

Ankle injuries affected his form and confidence in his final year at St Kilda and while he enjoyed the opportunity to be coached by Denis Pagan at North, he couldn’t recapture his best form of ’99 and drifted over to Perth where he had two seasons at South Fremantle under the highly-rated John Dimmer.

McLaren says he played some of his best football at South Freo and has borrowed key sectors of Dimmer’s game plan for Koroit.

“John was fantastic for my footy and we certainly do some of the things he used to do with us,” said McLaren.

He says Koroit is fortunate to be strong on and off the field, with good support at the immediate administration and in the town and in the depth of the playing list too, with quality country players such as Andrew Paton,  Matt McMahon, Carl Dwyer and Andrew Foster.

McLaren has played mainly at full-forward this year and in round 13 passed 50 goals for the season. Included has been several “bags” of seven and eight goals.

“I still prefer being on the ball,” he said. “At St Kilda I played middle or half-back where my running could be of most use.

“The body is slowing down a bit through so it’s harder to do it all the time.”

He says it best suits Koroit’s “team structure” for him to be a target, but he doesn’t preclude a surprise or two coming into the finals.

Koroit last year defeated Cobden for the flag at Reid Oval, coming from 14 points behind at three quarter time.

He says the hunger to achieve again is just as strong and says the club’s many juniors help to enthuse and motivate and keep the older players competitive. 

“We have a strong junior program and it helps in every direction,” he said.

He says everyone involved at Koroit are “very passionate” about their roles and it makes it easier for him, as club coach, to concentrate on on-field matters.

He is disappointed that the Hampden League is likely to be relegated to Division II in next year’s Victorian Country Championships, but says the League is still strong  and the best sides as competitive as they were when he was a kid emerging in the mid ‘90s.

Originally from diary farming country in Woolsthorpe, near Koroit, McLaren was drafted by the Saints in 1995 in the intake which also included Barry Hall and Jason Cripps.

He played 11 games as a 19-year-old on debut and says his time at Moorabbin remains very dear to him.

“I still have many mates there, and at North too,” he says.

By Ken Piesse

Article first appeared The Sunday Herald Sun, July 22, 2008
 
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